Why Review Count Matters More Than Star Ratings

A dealer's review count tells you how much to trust its stars, and a high rating from few buyers can hide a lot.

Stars Alone Can Fool You

Picture two dealers. One has a perfect 5.0 from 12 reviews. The other has a 4.7 from 3,000. Most people pick the 5.0. That is often the wrong call.

Twelve people is a small group. A few friends, a few happy buyers from one good month, and the score looks perfect. Three thousand buyers are much harder to fake and much harder to please. A 4.7 from that many people is a strong record.

Perfect Scores Are Common on Small Lots

In our dealer directory, 5,348 listings show a perfect 5.0 from fewer than 50 reviews. That is a lot of perfect scores.

Some of those dealers really are great. But a perfect score from a small group does not tell you much yet. It takes time and a lot of buyers before the rough edges show. Every dealer has a bad day. A dealer with thousands of reviews has had many of them, and you can see how it handled them.

Small records also swing hard. With 12 reviews, one angry buyer drops a 5.0 to about 4.7. Two angry buyers drop it further. With 3,000 reviews, one bad review barely moves the needle. So a small record tells you about a few deals. A big record tells you about the dealer. That is the real reason count matters. It is not that big dealers are good. It is that you can finally see what they are.

What the Grades Show as Count Rises

We sorted graded dealers by how many reviews they have. The share that gets an F drops as the count goes up.

• 50 to 99 reviews, 23 percent get an F.
• 100 to 249 reviews, 16 percent get an F.
• 250 to 999 reviews, 7 percent get an F.
• 1,000 or more reviews, 1 percent get an F.

The top two grades go the other way. 53 percent of dealers with 50 to 99 reviews earn an A or B. For dealers with 1,000 or more, it is 82 percent.

This does not mean that more reviews make a dealer better. It may be that good dealers stay open longer and sell more cars, so they pile up more reviews. Either way, a big review count paired with a good grade is a strong sign.

Why Our Grade Adds 25 Average Reviews

To keep small samples from winning, our grade pulls every star average toward the national average of 4.3. It does this by adding 25 extra reviews at that average before doing the math.

Here is how that plays out. A 5.0 from 12 reviews becomes about 4.5 once you add 25 reviews at 4.3. A 4.7 from 3,000 reviews barely moves and stays about 4.7. The 25 extra reviews hardly touch a big record, but they bring a tiny one back to earth.

That is why the 4.7 dealer comes out ahead. It is also why an A needs at least 50 reviews. The full method is on our grading page.

How to Weigh Count When You Shop

You can use the same idea when you look at any dealer.

• Under 20 reviews, treat the stars as a first guess only.
• With a few hundred reviews, the stars start to mean something.
• With a thousand or more, the record is hard to fake.
• Always read the one star reviews, no matter the count.

Also look at the dates. Fifty reviews spread over five years tell a different story than fifty reviews in one month. A sudden burst of five star reviews is worth a second look.

The Complaint Share Still Matters

Count is one half of the picture. The other half is how many of those buyers were angry. A dealer with 2,000 reviews and a steady stream of one star reviews is not a safe bet. Our piece on the one star share shows how to read that part.

A Big Record Is Not a Checked Car

Even the dealer with the best record in town can sell a car with a hidden problem. Our used car inspection is a 122 point check with a full OBD-II scan, a road test, and tire and brake measurements. We go to the car, and the report comes the same day.

Common Questions

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